Drop whatever you're doing and watch this. NASA has released videos shot from onboard the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters in the past, but you've never seen one prepared as masterfully as this.

For one thing, the footage was shot in high definition, so the image is exceptionally clear. But what puts this video head and shoulders above most other rocketcams is the sound. The audio has been remastered by the folks over at Skywalker Sound (yes, that Skywalker Sound), and the final product is nothing short of incredible.

Michael Interbartolo — who used to work on the Shuttle Program at Mission Control in Houston — had this to say about the video when he posted it to Google+ earlier this morning:

Just got this from the guys at Glenn who are finalizing the new special edition DVD/BluRay version of Ascent: Commemorating Shuttle which this will be an extra on. The video is shot from the Solid Rocket Booster Perspective up and down with enhanced sound thanks to Ben Burtt's son and the folks at Skywalker Sound. The team is still trying to figure out how to release this all to the public, but for now enjoy an exclusive first look. +NASA youtube doesn't even have the video.Try to let what you're witnessing sink in. See those numbers flying past in the upper right hand corner? That's the Shuttle's airspeed. See that gleam of light against the inky backdrop of space at 2:08 and 3:11? That's the Shuttle continuing on its flight path into low Earth orbit. Hear the eerie rattling, haunting moans, and weird dinosaur noises? That's what it sounds like to be a Solid Rocket Booster, falling to Earth from an altitude of 150,000 feet.

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More discussion from Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait

Check out Phil's link to get more information about the video to prepare for watching.- LRK -

Turn up your speakers and take a wild ride on a Shuttle solid rocket boosterBy Phil Plait | March 15, 2012 9:31 am

On Google+, Michael Interbartolo — who worked for ten years on the Space Shuttle Program in Mission Control in Houston — just posted about this amazing video from cameras mounted on the Shuttle solid rockets as they rode into space. We’ve seen videos from rocketcams before, but this is very clear, and has enhanced sound that’ll rock your speakers:

There’s a lot to see here! The ascent is very cool, of course, and at two minutes the solid rocket boosters (or SRBs) separate from the external tank and Orbiter. As they tumble away we see the Earth spinning around, and several times you can see the plume from the launch in the view poking up from the surface into the sky. You can also see the bright "star" of the Orbiter as it continues on into space — the SRBs only burn for about two minutes, and are used as an assist to boost the Orbiter above the atmosphere. Once the SRBs drop away, the Orbiter burns liquid fuel from the orange external tank until it has enough speed to attain orbit.

From the upcoming Special Edition Ascent: Commemorating Space Shuttle DVD/BluRay by NASA/Glenn a movie from the point of view of the Solid Rocket Booster with sound mixing and enhancement done by the folks at Skywalker Sound. The sound is all from the camera microphones and not fake or replaced with foley artist sound. The Skywalker sound folks just helped bring it out and make it more audible.

Photographic documentation of a Space Shuttle launch plays a critical role in the engineering analysis and evaluation process that takes place during each and every mission. Motion and Still images enable Shuttle engineers to visually identify off-nominal events and conditions requiring corrective action to ensure mission safety and success. This imagery also provides highly inspirational and educational insight to those outside the NASA family.

This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.

The video was produced by Matt Melis at the Glenn Research Center.Finally PAO uploaded a 720p version, not sure if we will get 1080p like you wanted, but at least we are making progress.

This video from the Glenn Research Center highlights in stunning, behind-the-scenes imagery the launches of three space shuttle missions: STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124. NASA engineers provide commentary as footage from the ground and from the orbiters themselves document in detail the first phase of a mission.

There's an astronaut saying: In space, "there is no problem so bad that you can't make it worse." So how do you deal with the complexity, the sheer pressure, of dealing with dangerous and scary situations? Retired colonel Chris Hadfield paints a vivid portrait of how to be prepared for the worst in space (and life) -- and it starts with walking into a spider's web. Watch for a special space-y performance.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Behold... the Originale music video for the David Bowie song Space Oddity from Bowie's promotional film, 'Love You Till Tuesday', originally released in 1969 and re-released on dvd. I'm very happy to share this rare, unique and odd version of the video and song. EnJoy this piece of space film gold and vintage anti-special effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_You...)

I should say, I found this video on the interwebs in 2006. By accident, i meant to download the album Space Oddity. Instead I found this, didn't find any info about it anywhere, and posted it on the New video sharing website Youtube. I'm just so happy I found it because if not, who knows when this would have been uploaded. And it's such a wierd, special and super rare video and recording. So glad I can share it with people! Super cool gang!

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the“replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology. He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store. Contractor’s vision would mean the end of food waste, because the powder his system will use is shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge, whether it contains sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block, would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store.

NASA and a Texas company are exploring the possibility of using a "3D printer" on deep space missions in a way where the "D" would stand for dining.

NASA has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract to Systems and Materials Research Consultancy of Austin, Texas to study the feasibility of using additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, for making food in space. Systems and Materials Research Consultancy will conduct a study for the development of a 3D printed food system for long duration space missions. Phase I SBIR proposals are very early stage concepts that may or may not mature into actual systems. This food printing technology may result in a phase II study, which still will be several years from being tested on an actual space flight.

Future long duration space missions beyond low Earth orbit have unique challenges for food quality, variety, and nutrient stability. Current astronaut nutrition is exclusively meal-ready-to-eat (MRE) pouches, which do not provide flavor and texture variety or long term nutrient stability. There exists a need for a new food technology system that provides interesting flavors and recipes while including nutrient supplements to offset nutritional degradation from long term storage.

SMRC’s 3D printed food system will provide nutritious food choices in a variety of forms and flavors. In a Mars mission, this system is to be used in conjunction with bulk foods, prepackaged foods, and hydroponically grown foods. Potentially, hundreds of recipes are available, utilizing raw ingredient food stocks. An additional value added product of this system is the possibility of therapeutic diets. The probability that one or more astronauts will be injured or fall ill is high. Special therapeutic diets can be programmed at NASA headquarters and transmitted to the spacecraft. SMRC’s food dispensing system will be an adaptable food supply for individual tastes and nutrition needs.

SMRC has developed a 3D printed food system capable of dispensing viscous food made from powder and liquid ingredients. Cheese pizza has been the first demonstrated meal from SMRC’s 3D food printer. Pizza dough is dispensed onto a hot plate where it is cooked, followed by a tomato layer and cheese topping. Future developments of the 3D printer will include an oven for cooking the food. Nutrient addition to meals is a future add-on to the 3D printed food system.

3D Systems just unveiled its ChefJet 3D sugar printers, but how close are we to real 3-D-printed food?

Steve Symington
(TMFSymington)
Jan 12, 2014 at 11:00AM

In one of its quirkier moves to date, 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) just unveiled its new line of ChefJet 3D sugar printers.

Just as the name implies, 3D Systems insists ChefJet will allow any professional kitchen to incorporate "stunning edible prints" with minimal effort -- that is, for foodies willing to fork out some serious dough.

ChefJet will be available later this year in two models: one at "under $5,000" to deliver single-color edible prints, and another "Pro" version for "under $10,000" to enable larger, full-color designs

Ping Fu, author of Bend, Not Break, founder and CEO of Geomagic, and incoming chief strategy officer at 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD ) , tells of her journey from being a penniless newcomer to the United States to becoming an incredibly successful CEO.

3D Systems is at the leading edge of a disruptive technological revolution, with the broadest portfolio of 3-D printers in the industry. However, despite years of earnings growth, 3D Systems' share price has risen even faster, and today the company sports a dizzying valuation. To help investors decide whether the future of additive manufacturing is bright enough to justify the lofty price tag on the company's shares,

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A city in the sky or some base on a wayward plant may not have a lot of pasture land.

As we add to our population here on Earth we may want to use pasture land for more than grazing animals or covered pens that raise animals for our food,

Food from a vat, both vegetable or meat, what is your pleasure?
- LRK -

The disrupterati are bored, and they want to play with your food. Having flattened shopping, unshackled education, hotwired our wheels and loggified our daily lives, they now want to get into our mouths. Engineers-turned-chefs are tinkering with what’s in our food, and bringing technology to bear from other fields to do it in the name of science. However, it isn’t clear that this rush to re-engineer food is any different than what the mainstream food industry has been doing for years, only it’s coming out of a sector of industry more interested in accelerated change for change’s sake than in cracking major problems or satisfying real needs.

As mission statements go, it takes some beating. Scrawled on a whiteboard are the words: "We will change how the Earth looks from space!" It surpasses "Don't be evil" (the motto of Google, just down the road), and in terms of hubris it trumps even that of Facebook (also just round the corner): "Move fast and break things!"

In this anonymous laboratory on a low-rise industrial estate in Menlo Park, 40km south of San Francisco, there is a whiff of revolution in the air. There is a whiff of madness, too, but after a few hours in the company of the man leading this intriguing Silicon Valley startup, one begins to wonder if it is the rest of the world that is insane.

Professor Patrick Brown could easily be taken for a deranged visionary. He is intense, driven and unfazed by critics and rivals. This 57-year-old ultra-lean, sandal-wearing, marathon-running vegan wants to stop the world eating meat. Not through persuasion or coercion, but by offering us carnivores something better for the same price or less.

RepRap takes the form of a free desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself - a kit that anyone can assemble given time and materials. It also means that - if you've got a RepRap - you can print lots of useful stuff, and you can print another RepRap for a friend...

RepRap is about making self-replicating machines, and making them freely available for the benefit of everyone. We are using 3D printing to do this, but if you have other technologies that can copy themselves and that can be made freely available to all, then this is the place for you too.

Reprap.org is a community project, which means you are welcome to edit most pages on this site, or better yet, create new pages of your own. Our community portal and New Development pages have more information on how to get involved. Use the links below and on the left to explore the site contents. You'll find some content translated into other languages.

RepRap was the first of the low-cost 3D printers, and the RepRap Project started the open-source 3D printer revolution. It has become the most widely-used 3D printer among the global members of the Maker
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If Lucian Rudaux was the Grandfather of space art, Chesley Bonestell was the father. He was born on January 1, 1888, 15 years before the Wright brothers first flew and 38 years before the launch of the first liquid-fuel rocket. When he died 98 years later,…

If Lucian Rudaux was the Grandfather of space art, Chesley Bonestell was the father. He was born on January 1, 1888, 15 years before the Wright brothers first flew and 38 years before the launch of the first liquid-fuel rocket. When he died 98 years later, men had walked on the moon and spacecraft had visited most of the planets and many of the moons of the solar system.

Bonestell's paintings not only anticipated 20th century space exploration, they helped to bring it about. So realistic were his depictions of other worlds that visiting them no longer seemed fantasy. His artwork looked like picture postcards taken by some future astronaut.

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The official Bonestell web site where you can view images and even buy prints if interested.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the inaugural publication of Bonestell's space art, Bonestell LLC is releasing 250 limited edition art prints of Saturn as seen from Titan. The last official printing of Bonestell's Saturn as seen from Titan was in the 1970s.

Chesley Bonestell's space art first appeared in the May 29, 1944, issue of Life magazine, accompanying the article, "Solar System: It is Modeled in Miniature by Saturn and Nine Moons." The article featured a series of paintings – including Saturn as seen from Titan – depicting views of Saturn from its various satellites and presenting the audience with a realistic and magical impression of Saturn and space. Thus began the era in which Bonestell's art provided a window to explore space in magazines such as Collier's, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Life, Pic, Coronet, Scientific American, and in books such as The Conquest of Space and The Exploration of Mars.

Saturn as seen from Titan became one of Bonestell's most iconic paintings. It is also one of the paintings he would paint again and again, the view evolving with time. The print for purchase is a version he created in 1952 for his daughter, Jane Webster. It was first exhibited in the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, October 1957. While its second and last exhibition was in 1988 at the California Academy of Sciences.

The print was released on June 11, 2014. This date is significant: Chesley Bonestell passed away on June 11, 1986, doing one of the things he loved most – painting.

To learn more about the painting's different incarnations, read Ron Miller's essay, "The Evolution of a Space Icon." Miller co-wrote "The Art of Chesley Bonestell," and is a best-selling author and award-winning artist.

Chesley Knight Bonestell, Jr. (January 1, 1888 – June 11, 1986) was an American painter, designer and illustrator.[2] His paintings were a major influence on science fiction art and illustration, and he helped inspire the American space program. An early pioneering creator of astronomical art, along with the French astronomer-artist Lucien Rudaux, Bonestell was dubbed the "Father of Modern Space Art".

Chesley Bonestell and the Landscape of the MoonThe purpose of art is to soothe the soul, but sometimes it can predict future realities with uncanny precision.

By Paul D. Spudisairspacemag.com
June 14, 2012The influence of the arts on our popular culture is well known. The television generation grew up with Forbidden Planet and Star Trek, shaping our sensibilities and expectations about space travel. The genre of “space art” enlightened and expanded our minds and ignited our imaginations. The sixties and seventies brought us “space” artists with their startlingly realistic vistas of unvisited worlds and ancient times. Authors, writing for all ages and levels of interest, found eager audiences. From the beginning, the space age left an indelible mark on many.

The Saga of Lunar Landscape
Posted on January 22, 2010 by The National Air and Space Museum

For more than a decade it has been my privilege, among my other duties, to serve as curator of the National Air and Space Museum art collection. It comes as a surprise to many folks to realize that the Museum has an art collection. In fact, it includes over 4,700 works by artists with names like Daumier, Goya, Rauschenberg, Rockwell and Wyeth, and is perhaps the finest and best-rounded collection of aerospace-themed art held by any of the world’s museums. People who are aware that I manage the Museum’s art treasures occasionally ask if I have a favorite work in the collection, I do.

Chesley Bonestell’s mural, Lunar Landscape, was unveiled at the Boston Science Museum’s Hayden Planetarium on March 28, 1957. “No spaceship reservations are needed for a startlingly realistic visit to the Moon” announced a museum press release. Measuring forty feet long by ten feet tall, the dramatic panorama of the lunar surface was the masterwork of an artist who had done more than his fair share to set the stage for the coming of the Space Age.

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Tom D. Crouch is a senior curator in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

The subject of proposed missions to the Moon have been mentioned before, still the beginning of a year is probably a good time to bring it up again.

I mentioned that maybe Disney would like to help fund the government direction to make a space habitat and it has been suggested that it might better be done for some commercial lunar enterprise proposal.

It might be interesting to look at some of the future space proposals from the idea of what is in it for yourself.

Below a snippet of the Wikpedia article on proposed missions to the Moon.

At Lunar Mission One, we believe the Moon is for everyone. It’s our driving force, our core belief, our mission. We want to give everyone on Earth the chance to make their mark on the Moon with us. So upload a photo of your footprints, feet or shoes below. We plan to send all your photos to the Moon on the Astrobotic Lander in 2017, so you can make a stand on the Moon with us.

The customer would be shot around the moon as early as 2008 at a price of $100 million. Soyuz had already been proven for this role under the L1 program in the 1960's.

In August 2005 Energia, in collaboration with Space Adventures / Deep Space Expeditions announced the potential offering of flights around the moon to millionaires able to afford the $ 100 million price tag. Dusting off the work of the 1960's that resulted in the Soyuz being qualified for manned circumlunar flight, the new version proposed two mission profiles:

The baseline Direct Staged Mission would run as follows:

Day 1: Launch of a Soyuz TMA spacecraft by a Soyuz 11A511U booster into low earth orbit.Day 2: Launch of Block DM upper stage by a Zenit-3 launch vehicle. After the Block DM's parking orbit parameters were verified, the Soyuz TMA began to maneuver to rendezvous with the upper stage.Day 3: The Soyuz docked with the Block DM. After check-out, the Block DM fired to propel the Soyuz on a trans-lunar trajectory. After burn-out, the Soyuz undocks from the upper stage and continues on its ballistic course toward the moon.Days 4-5: Coast to the moon. The Soyuz makes mid-course maneuvers as necessary.Day 6: Loop around the moon at a considerable altitude. The Soyuz did not have the propellant capacity to enter lunar orbit, so the surface passed by below in an encounter of just a few hours.Days 7-8: The long fall back towards earth, with midcourse corrections as needed.Day 9: Re-entry in the earth's atmosphere. Presumably the Soyuz would make the double-dip trajectory over one of the earth's poles perfected by the L1 Zond spacecraft in the 1960's.

Another, more expensive variant of the mission foresaw the Soyuz spending two weeks at the International Space Station prior to the lunar mission - a total of 3 weeks in space, in earth orbit, and around the moon.----

Deep Space Expedition Alpha (DSE-Alpha), is the name given to the mission proposed in 2005 to take the first space tourists to fly around the Moon. The mission is organized by Space Adventures Ltd., a commercial spaceflight company. The plans involve a modified Soyuz capsule docking with a booster rocket in Earth orbit which then sends the spacecraft on a free return circumlunar trajectory that circles around the Moon once. While the price was originally announced in August 2005 to cost US$100 million per seat, Space Adventures founder Eric Anderson announced in January 2011 that one of the two available seats had been sold for $150 million. Launch is currently being targeted for 2018.[1][2]

The publicized price for flights brokered by Space Adventures to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been US $20–40 million, during the period 2001–2009 when 7 space tourists made 8 space flights. Some space tourists have signed contracts with third parties to conduct certain research activities while in orbit.

Russia halted orbital space tourism in 2010 due to the increase in the International Space Station crew size, using the seats for expedition crews that would have been sold to paying spaceflight participants.[1][2] Orbital tourist flights are planned to resume in 2015.[3]

As an alternative term to "tourism", some organizations such as the Commercial Spaceflight Federation use the term "personal spaceflight". The Citizens in Space project uses the term "citizen space exploration".[4]

As of September 2012, multiple companies are offering sales of orbital and suborbitalflights, with varying durations and creature comforts.[5]

Commercialization of space is the use of equipment sent into or through outer space to provide goods or services of commercial value, either by a corporation or state. Examples of the commercial use of space includesatellite navigation systems, satellite television and satellite radio. The first commercial use of outer space was in 1962, when the Telstar 1 satellite was launched to transmit television signals over the Atlantic ocean. By the 1980s individuals belonging to private firms were being launched into space to oversee commercial equipment deployment and operations. This eventually lead to opportunities for individuals to pay to be put into space in the early 2000s, which was the birth of space tourism. By 2004, global investment in all space sectors was estimated to be $50.8 billion.[1] In the decades following the advent of space tourism, many different concepts of the commercialization of space have evolved, from the founding of space tourism companies, such as Virgin Galactic, to ambitious projects such as Mars Colonization, Asteroid Mining and Tourism on Moon.